Friday, March 11, 2016

65 Years of Menacing!

This coming week is the 65th anniversary since Dennis the Menace was unleashed upon the world. He first appeared in The Beano dated 17th March 1951. As comics were dated to the weekend ahead back then, and The Beano was published on Wednesdays, that would mean kids would have been buying that issue on Wednesday 14th March 1951. Dennis' first artist was of course Davey Law, whose funny, contemporary style heralded great changes for comics in the 1950s. Seeing Dennis the Menace in his younger brother's copy of The Beano inspired Leo Baxendale to contribute to the comic, so without the Menace we might not have had Leo's creations The Bash Street Kids, Little Plum, The Three Bears, or Minnie the Minx. I think it's fair to say that Law's Dennis the Menace was a gamechanger and possibly the most influential character in the history of British humour comics. Here's a few examples of Dennis from over the years. This is the very first strip from 1951...

Next, one from later that year (Beano No.483, Oct 20th, 1951) with Dennis having evolved into his more traditional look...

At the top of this post is the cover to the third Dennis the Menace annual, published in 1959 for 1960. It reprinted numerous Dennis strips from the 1950s. Here's a selection...

When I first discovered the strip in the 1960s it had proved popular enough to be on the back page in full colour. This one from 1965, again by Davey Law...

Sadly, Davey Law passed away in 1971. His creation continued under the hand of David Sutherland doing a fine imitation of Law's style. Dennis' popularity continued and in 1974 he replaced Biffo the Bear as the cover star of The Beano. Here's an example of Sutherland's version from 1975. As you can see, by now Dennis had been joined by his dog, Gnasher, who first appeared in the strip in 1968...

In 1998, a new addition to Dennis' family, - a little sister! (Soon to be named Bea.) Art by David Parkin...

The current Dennis the Menace artist is Nigel Parkinson, doing a great job every week with a version that combines the best elements of the traditional Dennis but is still his own...

4 comments:

I just love those early Davey Law strips with his "tighter" style - I have to admit I never understood the popularity of Dennis when I was a kid in the 60s (it was actually one of my least favourite strips) until I was given a Dennis annual one Christmas (the 1968 annual) which I thought was excellent - he was still never a favourite of mine but I kinda "got it" after that (especially appreciating Davey Laws art) - its good to see he is still as popular with the kids after all this time.

Fun blog to scroll through and bring back a few memories as well as some info on the new stuff that's going on.

This post reminded me of a drawing I did last month of Dennis and his namesake over in the US. I even sent a message to The Beano editor to get some confirmation on Dennis' debut. Happily your date also lines up with the one I got but sources I found while trying to get the info all gave conflicting dates.

Here's the pic I drew, if you're interested:http://workingdoodles.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/menace-vs-menace.html

About this blog:

Established in 2006, BLIMEY! is dedicated to British comics past and present. Images are copyright their respective publishers and are only used here for review purposes.

The images of comics on my blog are scanned from my own personal comics collection or, in the case of some current issues, are promotional images sent to me by the publishers. On the rare occasion when I might use an image from another site I always credit the source. If you take images I've scanned to use on your own blog/site I'd appreciate it if you'd have the good manners to show the same courtesy.

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About Me

I work as a professional humour comics artist and writer and have been freelancing full time since 1984, creating many characters such as TOM THUG, PETE AND HIS PIMPLE, COMBAT COLIN, BRICKMAN, ROBO-CAPERS, DEREK THE TROLL, SUBURBAN SATANISTS and others.
I've freelanced for IPC, Marvel Comics, Egmont, Panini,D.C. Thomson, and many others, covering the comics field from originated characters to licensed properties, pre-school to adult on comics such as BUSTER, OINK!, BEANO, DANDY, TRANSFORMERS, SONIC THE COMIC, TOXIC, VIZ, CiTV TELLYTOTS, LEGO ADVENTURES, HERMAN HEDNING, SWEET FA, ACTION FORCE, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, RAMPAGE, LUCKY BAG COMIC, SWIFTSURE, WARLOCK, WHITE DWARF, ACES WEEKLY, THE DAREDEVILS, THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL, and many more.
My recent comics work has included:'Team Toxic' for Egmont's TOXIC magazine'Postman Prat', 'Kid Cops' and 'The Dark Newt' for THE DANDY'Rasher', 'Pup Parade', 'Lord Snooty' and 'Ivy the Terrible' for THE BEANO.
'The Daft Dimension' for DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE.